Chapter Text
“You are settling in well, I trust?”
Stella eyed the camp commandant suspiciously. “Fine.”
“Do you have anything to report to me?”
Immediately, Stella’s hackles went up. The commandant must have noticed because he extended both hands towards her above the surface of his desk, as though trying to placate a spooked animal he thought was seconds away from biting him.
“I mean in the way of mistreatment by the men,” he elaborated. “If anyone has taken it upon himself to make inappropriate comments or to touch you in any unwelcome way, I would personally like to take care of the matter.”
He had a kind face, this man, but Stella had long since learnt not to trust that. He wore the same uniform as the men who had overseen her interrogations - was maybe even higher ranking, by the looks of his medals. Not his relaxed, pleasant expression, his kind, expressive eyes, nor his considerate words were going to win her over.
“I know you are living in a room with men,” the commandant went on when Stella didn’t answer him. “Is this okay with you? I can have you transferred to a room of your own if you would prefer this.”
The thought made Stella’s blood run cold. To be in this place, so cavernous, full of so many unfamiliar faces, and be so alone. To not have John there, waiting for her to crawl into bed with him every night. She shook her head insistently, her gaze going hard. “I’m fine where I am,” she asserted.
The commandant - who had a German name which was much too long for Stella to remember - stared patiently into her eyes, then smiled amusedly. “You do not trust me,” he deduced. He was backlit and draped in silhouette by the light from the window behind him, dust motes swirling in the air in front of his face. Everything in this camp was dusty, Stella had found, a testament to its forgotten inhabitants.
“Why would I?” Stella volleyed back at him.
Again, the commandant laughed, though not unkindly. “I had hoped my reputation may have preceded me. I respect my prisoners and I do believe they respect me too.”
This was true, at least. John and the other men had been relieved when the man who had come to collect her for questioning was the commandant because, they claimed, he was anti-Nazi, or about as anti-Nazi as any German could possibly be while wearing a Nazi uniform and still breathing.
Stella shrugged, staring resolutely back at him, immovable and unsmiling. “The other prisoners are men.”
“And this makes a difference?”
“Men respect other men,” Stella replied simply.
The commandant’s eyes glinted. “Something tells me you do not struggle to demand respect.”
“I earn respect,” Stella corrected. “And I expect others to do the same.”
The commandant accepted this readily and moved on. “You are a pilot,” he said.
“But one of many.”
“A female pilot,” he explained. “We have heard only of the Soviets using female pilots, and yet you wear the uniform of the Royal Air Force.”
“I explained myself to the Gestapo.”
“They have asked me to corroborate their findings.”
“I will tell you nothing more than I told them.”
The commandant leaned back in his chair, resting his elbows on the arm rests and considering her carefully. “Stella Finley,” he said at last. “May I call you Stella?”
Stella narrowed her eyes. “You may call me Flight Lieutenant Finley,” she said. “And I would appreciate it if my rank was used during roll call, the same as all the other prisoners. I told it to the Gestapo, it’s in my file.”
The commandant hid a smile behind a cough. “I will see to it that this is implemented beginning with this evening’s roll call, Flight Lieutenant Finley.”
“Thank you.”
“I have two daughters,” the commandant said next. He spoke breezily, fluidly, as though this was the natural turn for the conversation to have taken, as though this was a commonplace reply. “Lucie and Elisabeth-Charlotte. You are twenty-three years old?”
Stella nodded stiffly.
“Then they are ten and nine years older than you. Lucie is thirty-three and Elisabeth-Charlotte is thirty-two. They have children of their own now.” He smiled, clearly picturing his grandchildren in his mind’s eye. He was still smiling when he focused his eyes back on Stella. “I remember when my daughters were your age, defiant and intent on conquering the world.”
Shifting in her seat, Stella tilted her chin up in defiance. She didn’t know where he was going with this but she was sure it wouldn’t end well for her.
“It kills me to imagine what happened to you happening to them.”
“Oh.” He’d caught her so off guard with that statement that Stella found herself floundering.
“The Gestapo are terrible to their prisoners,” the commandant pushed on brazenly. “Here, we are not the same. And I would like to keep you here, where we will treat you kindly and with respect, but you must help me if you would like to stay.”
Swallowing hard, Stella pushed herself to sit up straighter in her seat. “I’m not telling you anything,” she reasserted.
The commandant deflated, clearly disappointed.
Stella scoffed. He didn’t want to keep her here, he wanted her to talk.
“They will be even unkinder to you if they see fit to remove you from here,” the commandant said.
Stella refused to show any reaction.
“It will be better for us both if you simply lie.”
Silence fell. Stella was sure she didn’t even breathe. It was dangerous for such a man to be speaking like this, she knew - dangerous for anyone in Germany to be speaking like this but especially such a high-ranking Nazi. And yet, here he was, telling her to lie to save herself.
The commandant smiled at her surprise. “If it were my daughters sitting before the desk of a British camp commandant, this is what I would like for him to say to them.”
It took a moment for Stella to find her voice. When she did, it shook. “Your daughters would know that talking is signing your soul over to the devil. No information is ever enough.” She shook her head, squeezing her hands tightly together in her lap, grinding the heels of her palms together to get rid of the sweat. “If you set the precedent that pain will make you talk, they will always find ways to be even more spiteful to make you talk more. If they find bribery will open you up, they will always raise the stakes. Nothing is ever confessed without consequence.” Stella shook her head, slumping back into her chair. “I have nothing to tell.”
Shaking his head resignedly, his eyes sad and exhausted, the commandant sighed. “They will not forget about you, Flight Lieutenant Finley.” He passed a hand over his eyes. “The Gestapo has placed you here now but they are not finished with you. They do not like to have their wares scattered or resting in the wrong places. Where they decide to send you next will be worse.”
“Then keep me here,” Stella said. Her eyes had lost all defiance, were tired and resigned just like his were. “That’s what you’d like for a British commandant to do for your daughters, no?”
Staring cooly back at her, the commandant took care to show no emotion in response to this appeal.
“Consider my offer,” he said at last in place of a proper reply, abruptly and with all the air of someone finished with the conversation. “We will speak again tomorrow.”
“ You will speak again tomorrow,” Stella corrected as she pushed herself to her feet.
The commandant smiled faintly, laying his hands one on top of the other on the desk. “Perhaps.”
When Stella returned to the barracks, she scanned the room and its inhabitants - only a few men at this time of day - and settled on John, who was already climbing to his feet from where he’d been lying in bed, his eyes on her.
Before he could speak, Stella declared, “I want to learn baseball.”
As he came to stand opposite her, John’s eyebrows furrowed. “Baseball?” he asked.
“Yes,” Stella confirmed, as though this should have been an obvious thing for her to say upon returning from questioning. “You like baseball, don’t you?”
“What happened in your meeting?”
“Nothing.” Stella shook her head. “Are you going to teach me baseball or not?”
John clearly recognised that he wasn’t going to win this battle so, instead of persisting, he let out a long breath and finally gave her a smile, laughter hidden in its corners. “Then let’s go play some baseball.”
Stella did not like baseball. Not, of course, that she would ever tell that to John. It reminded her of playing rounders at school, when she had been terrible at batting and the butt of jokes because of it, in spite of her prowess at fielding. But she listened intently to John as he explained the rules to her anyway, especially because he had to repeat himself more than once, and tried her hardest to keep up with the other men he’d recruited to play with them.
Her stamina was nothing compared to what it had been before interrogation. Her legs were weak, her feet were throbbing, and her lungs could never seem to take in enough air.
They played for what felt like hours. Stella wasn’t sure how long it actually was. Her concept of time had become so badly damaged in interrogation she couldn’t measure minutes against hours anymore. She could only recognise days because she could go outside, now - had to go outside, now. Because there was routine and other people and windows.
Stella fought with herself not to let her exhaustion or her pain show. It would only warrant more questions. But her feet were burning, screaming, wailing. The backs of her legs were being torn to shreds all over again. She could barely walk, could barely stay standing, could barely hold herself upright.
Benny DeMarco caught her as her knees crumpled beneath her.
“Stels!” John shouted the instant he noticed. He was beside her in a heartbeat, easing her carefully out of Benny’s arms and lowering her to the ground to sit in his lap.
“Ow,” Stella whimpered, her head drooping onto his shoulder, her eyes squeezing shut.
“Get a doctor!” John was demanding of the men around him.
“I’m fine,” Stella insisted, screwing up handfuls of his jacket in her hands. She pressed her forehead into his shoulder, willing the fierce, burning pain to subside. “It’ll fade.”
He shifted her in his lap and she yelped as one of her feet got caught beneath her, the toe of her boot scraping across the gravel.
“Where does it hurt?” John demanded.
“Ow,” Stella whined, uncomprehending.
“Come on, Stels, baby, where’s it hurt?” he insisted.
She held onto him tighter. “Feet,” she gasped. “Legs. Back.” It more than hurt. It was like having hot pokers pressed to her skin, sending white light flashing behind her eyes and filling her nostrils with the smell of burning flesh.
She must have dropped out of consciousness because the next time she tried to speak she was lying in bed in the barracks.
There was an unfamiliar man kneeling at her bedside.
Stella flinched away from him.
“I’m right here, Stels,” John assured her, pushing forward to kneel beside the other man. “The doctor’s just gonna take a look -”
“No!” Stella insisted. Pushing herself up as high as she could while sitting on the bottom bunk, she turned and pressed her back to the wall. Every muscle in her body protested.
“No. Don’t touch me,” she snapped, her eyes zeroed in on the doctor. She kept on trying to push her back tighter to the wall. Her heels dug into the mattress, seeking purchase as she attempted to put impossible distance between them.
“I want to help you,” insisted the doctor in his thick German accent. His hands were resting on the edge of the bed.
There was nowhere for her to go, only a wall at her back and men all around her, watching her, sizing her up. She had been here so many times before. She’d been foolish to believe it was over. It was never over. Never, never, never over.
So many men with this same accent, this same uniform, these same eyes, reaching for her, tying her down, beating and cutting and burning and wrenching and scratching and -
When the doctor reached for her she screamed, high pitched and terrified, her wrists losing strength as her hands dug further into the mattress to hold her up, her legs shaking and protesting with agony, her heart pounding loud and hard in her ears.
The scream didn’t stop his approach but her legs did, boneless and shaking and yet spiteful as they kicked at his chest. White hot ribbons of pain ricocheted through her bones.
“Stels,” John said, reaching to catch her legs to stop her.
She screamed again. There was wetness on her cheeks. White light was flashing behind her eyes again. More screaming, though it no longer sounded like it was coming from her. “Stop it! Don’t touch me! Stop it!” Her voice was raw, distant, scratched and wild, coming from a feral thing. It was not the voice of a human woman.
The doctor backed out of her reach.
Stella didn’t notice.
“Stella,” John pleaded, pushing into the doctor’s abandoned place, kneeling on the ground between her thrashing legs. “Stels, please -”
“Stop it! Don’t touch me! Don’t, don’t, don’t!”
“He’s not gonna touch you, Stels, I promise,” John attempted to soothe, though the effect was diminished by how loud he had to speak to be heard over her. “He’s not gonna touch you, I promise. I won’t let him touch you.”
“I will only look,” the doctor said calmly, standing behind John stoically, a looming silhouette.
“John!” Stella screamed. Her chest was heaving, her breaths wheezing and gasping. She was coughing and sputtering, her lungs too fragile to withstand the rattling of her voice.
To one of the other men, the doctor spoke calmly, “I can sedate her -”
“No,” John snapped. “She said don’t touch her.”
“Don’t let him get me, don’t let him get me, don’t let him get me,” Stella whined, her back sliding down the wall until she was curled in a ball on her side. “Don’t, John, don’t. Don’t let him. Don’t let him get me.”
Buck took John’s place as he rounded on the doctor. “What the fuck did they do to her, huh?! What the fuck do they do in prison?!”
“Stella, it’s me,” Buck was telling her, kneeling beside the bed but keeping his hands to himself, watching her as she curled in on herself and sobbed. “It’s Gale. I’m not gonna let anyone near you, okay? You’re safe.”
“I am not an interrogator,” the doctor answered John dismissively. “I am a doctor. And I cannot help her if she will not let me look.”
“She won’t let you look because she’s fucking traumatised!” cut in Brady from the doctor’s other side. “I wouldn’t let you look either!”
John grasped the doctor’s lapels and hauled him in close. “What the fuck did they do to her?!” he demanded.
The doctor barely batted an eye. “There are rumours. I cannot know for sure unless she lets me see her wounds.”
“She was complaining about her feet,” Benny cut in with a resigned, exhausted expression. He ran a hand down his face but it didn’t ease the furrow of his eyebrows or the hard set of his jaw. “Her legs and her feet.”
“I have heard the Gestapo sometimes pull out prisoners’ toenails,” said the doctor.
On the bed, Stella was still wailing.
“Whipping, also,” the doctor continued. “Most often to the back and the thighs.”
“He won’t touch you, Stella, he won’t,” Buck was insisting to her softly by the bed. “None of us are gonna let him touch you.”
“He wants to hurt me,” Stella was whining, clutching the pillow against her face, burying her nose into it.
“He doesn’t,” Buck objected softly, “and none of us are gonna let him.”
“They’re gonna send me back,” Stella choked.
“We’re gonna keep you here,” Buck replied.
“Cigarette burns are said to be common,” the doctor was continuing. “Endurance torture, perhaps, would explain the back pain.”
“No wonder she doesn’t want you anywhere near her,” Hambone growled from the corner.
Stella was quieting now, still weeping but mumbling instead of screaming, shaking her head into the pillow. “Days, days, days and weeks, weeks, weeks,” she was telling Buck. “And they’ll send me back and it’ll be years, years, years.”
“How do we treat her?” John demanded of the doctor. He’d heard enough. “If they did all that stuff you said -” His voice cracked, protested, revolted against him. Even the thought that she’d endured even half of it made bile rise up his throat, made every muscle in his body coil tight, a python seconds away from attacking. “If she’s got all those wounds, how do we treat her?”
“Preventing infection is all there is to do for her,” the doctor spoke calmly. “I can give you bandages and alcohol but little more.”
“I want to go home,” Stella was whispering, rocking on her side, clutching Lucky’s toy bunny to her chest. “I want to go back to England, to my old bunk, and I want to drop spies into France and fly home again. I want to eat breakfast at midnight and sleep in until noon and spend every night in the pub with my friends. I want to go home.”
“You’re gonna go home,” Buck assured her. “We all are.”
“They’ll kill me before they let me go home,” Stella breathed.
“I will deliver the supplies to you,” the doctor informed the rest of the room. “Clean the wounds and then wrap them with bandages. Change the bandages once every day. If the wounds get dirty, you must clean them again and change the bandages. Keep them clean and they will heal.” He shrugged as he backed away, heading for the door. “Other than that, if she will not let me see her, you are on your own.”
It took John ten minutes to coax Stella’s face out of the pillow. He didn't dare touch her, didn’t dare raise his voice above a whisper, but he sat with his legs extended beneath the bed and leaned his elbows on the mattress, talking her through a baseball game he’d watched over and over again when he was a kid.
He watched with sad eyes as her breathing evened out, as her arms became gentler in their hold on the rabbit. Eventually, tentatively, she lifted her face just enough to meet his eyes.
“Hey,” John greeted softly. “He’s gone. It’s just us in here. Me and you and the guys.”
Stella said nothing, just stared at him with those watery, weepy blue eyes.
“The doctor’s not gonna come back, alright?” he assured her. “I made sure of it.”
Again, she said nothing, just kept on staring.
“But he brought some supplies so we can look after you. Bandages and stuff.”
“Will you lie with me?” Stella whispered.
She had always hated feeling small, even when she was a little girl. She’d hated being the smallest member of her family - maybe that was why she’d always taken it upon herself to be the one to stand up to their tyrant of a father - and ever since childhood she had hated to appear weak. She’d spent her war posturing and snarking and puffing out her chest, doing everything she could to assert dominance and demand recognition for her talent. She had made it her mission to ensure her reputation preceded her. She had made herself larger than life.
In interrogation, she had been tiny, a ball hunched in the corner of a damp, dark cell, trying to take up as little space as possible, as though if she just curled up tight enough she might disappear. There had been terror in being so tiny.
John knew now, she knew, or at least had an idea of what had happened to her. Everyone likely did. Her performance was finished. She was as small as she had ever been.
All around her, men shuffled about the room cautiously, quietly, trying not to disturb. One by one they left.
When it was just John and Stella, one wrapped around the other on their bed, seeking refuge beneath the sheets, Stella tucked her face into Lucky’s toy bunny. Finally, she let herself breathe.